Netflix To Offer Original Content, Starting With New “Arrested Development” Episodes

A friend once described FOX’s cancelled-then-cult-favorite “Arrested Development” as “the perfect show”. Many would agree, and fans have clamored for more “Arrested Development” since the show’s cancellation in 2006. Now, those folks will get their wish.

Netflix announced that in 2013, it will deliver new episodes of the series in an exclusive deal forged with Twentieth Century Fox Television and Imagine Television. It’s unclear how exactly this is going to work--AR alums have stayed quite busy, notably stars Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Michael Cera--so it would be surprising to see all of them return in force, but at the very least, executive produces Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Mitch Hurwitz are on the project.

In a press release, 20th Century Fox TV Chairmen Dana Walden and Gary Newman said, “This innovative deal with Netflix represents a new business model that is extremely exciting and opens the door for a wide range of new collaborations." Indeed.

Netflix has made a number of missteps of late, and it has lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers as a result. Although giving subscribers exclusive access to a popular show is sure to bring a few of those customers back, this development (pun!) speaks to something far more intriguing and compelling: Netflix is getting exclusive, original content.

If Netflix can get some strong original content flowing, many, many more of those lost subscribers will come back--not to mention quite a few new ones.